InFocus IN81 DLP Projector - InFocus IN81

Summary

Our Score:

9

It's good to note, too, that the digital inputs are v1.3s able to take the eagerly awaited Deep Colour picture format. Amazingly a Deep Colour source is finally on the horizon, in the form of JVC's upcoming HD5 and HD6 Everio camcorders. Due to launch in March, these will record in full HD using Deep Colour, and carry HDMI v1.3 outputs to send your Deep Colour recordings to the IN81 - or whatever v1.3-capable screen you happen to own.

There's still no word on Deep Colour movie discs, though; at the moment it looks like if you want Deep Colour films, you're going to have to make them yourself!

Anyway, I digress. Getting back to the job in hand, I should also add that the digital video ports can take the in-vogue 1080p/24fps HD format from HD disc players capable of outputting it. Plus they're joined by dedicated component, S-Video and composite video fallbacks and handy 12V trigger outputs for driving a motorised screen.

As with all of InFocus's recent projectors, the IN81's video processing is taken on by the third-party 10-bit DNX system from PixelWorks - no bad thing considering what impressive results this system has delivered for InFocus so far.

The DLP engine that PixelWorks is driving is, as we indicated earlier, a 1,920 x 1,080 ‘full HD' one that can apparently produce a contrast ratio of between 3,000 and 10,000:1. Why the different contrast ratio figures? Because the IN81 comes with a manually adjustable iris, allowing you to choose to sacrifice a little of the image's brightness in return for enhanced black levels.

We have to say that the InFocus idea of quoting a kind of minimum and maximum contrast ratio, rather than just the maximum figure, is admirably honest, and a policy we'd really like its rivals to adopt. Not that they will, of course.

Joining PixelWorks in attempting to improve picture quality, meanwhile, is the software component of Texas Instruments' BrilliantColor feature, designed to produce richer and more natural colours. To get the full benefit of BrilliantColor, the IN81 would also have needed to use a six-colour colour wheel rather than a standard RGB one; but even just the processing ‘half' of the system should elicit some positive results.

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